Cross and Burn Read Online Free PDF

a sprinkling of bars and bistros provided somewhere for locals and visitors to mingle. One of Bradfield Victoria’s premier league stars had even lent his name to a Spanish tapas bar that he occasionally deigned to grace with his presence.
    The basin itself had become a mix of permanent residential moorings and short-stay marina slots for the narrowboats that provided holidays and day trips where once they’d shifted cargoes round the country.
    Attractive though it now was, it had never previously crossed Tony’s mind as a possible home. He’d sat outside one of the waterside pubs with Carol Jordan once, when they’d been pretending to be normal people who could have a drink and a conversation that didn’t involve the interior life of fucked-up individuals. Another time, he’d shared a clutter of tapas with a couple of American colleagues who’d come to look round the secure mental hospital where he worked. More than once, he’d walked the canal from one side of the city to the other while he mulled over a complex case. There was something about walking that freed up his mental processes to consider options other than the obvious.
    So, he was familiar with the basin. Yet he’d never wondered what it would be like to live on the water in the heart of the city until it was all that was left to him. His former house in Bradfield was gone, sold to strangers when he thought he’d finally found a place he could with conviction call home. And now that was gone too, a burned-out shell that was an uncomfortable metaphor for what had happened to the life he’d imagined he could lead there. Everywhere he looked, bloody metaphors galore.
    Tony crossed the cobbled area that separated the tapas bar from the houseboat moorings and swung aboard a pretty narrowboat whose name, Steeler , unfurled on a painted gold-and-black ribbon across the stern. He unfastened the heavy padlocks that held the hatch closed and clattered down the steep steps to the cabin below. As he passed, he threw the switches that activated the boat’s electricity supply, generated by an array of solar panels. Even gloomy Bradfield skies provided enough energy for one person whose power needs were far from extravagant.
    He’d been surprised by how readily he’d adapted to living in so confined a space. Life with a place for everything and everything in its place had proved unexpectedly soothing. There was no room for anything inessential; living like this had stripped his material life down to the bone, forcing him to reconsider the worth of stuff that had cluttered his life for years. OK, he didn’t love the practical necessities like emptying the toilet tank and topping up the water reservoir. Nor was he entirely at ease with the camaraderie of the water, a connectivity that seemed to draw together the most unlikely combinations of people. And he still hadn’t mastered the heating system. Now the nights were getting colder, he was growing fed up with waking in a freezing cabin. He was going to have to settle for the action of last resort – sitting down with the manual and actually reading the instructions. But in spite of all the inconveniences, he had grown comfortable in this calm, contained world.
    He dumped his bag on the buttoned leather banquette that ran along the saloon bulkhead and put the kettle on for a cafètiere of coffee. While he waited for the water to boil, he booted up his laptop and checked his email. The only new message was from a cop for whom he’d profiled a serial rapist a few years before. Half-hoping it was an invitation to work with him again, he opened it.
     
Hi Tony. How are you doing? I heard about the business with Jacko Vance. Terrible thing, but without your input it could have been so much worse.
The reason I’m writing is because we’re organising a conference to promote the use of offender profiling in high-visibility cases. Not just murders, but other serious offences too. It’s getting harder to persuade top